Love,Written In Ruins-Chapter 25: Your Solution Is Murder
For a moment, the world around Marcia felt muted. The distant, rhythmic crash of the Barcelona waves, the murmur of tourists passing the restaurant’s terrace, even the golden warmth of the setting sun—all of it blurred into the background as the man across from her leaned back in his chair with the leisurely ease of someone discussing the weather, not the orchestration of murder.
He regarded her with calm, analytical eyes—eyes the color of polished steel. She felt like a puzzle piece he already knew how to fit, even if she herself was still desperately trying to figure out the picture. He drummed a single finger on the table, smooth, rhythmic, patient, waiting for her to process his obscene offer.
"The answer to your problem is simple," he said, his voice low and silky, devoid of moral judgment. "Just break up with your boyfriend and get engaged to Luciano. Immediately."
Marcia blinked. For a heartbeat, she wondered if she had suffered some form of stress-induced auditory hallucination. But no—he was watching her with that faintly amused, detached expression, like he enjoyed watching her confusion unfold into horror.
A nervous, breathless laugh slipped out of her before she could stop it—a thin, incredulous sound.
"You’re joking," she said, her voice shaking. "You have to be joking."
He wasn’t.
His eyes stayed steady. Unblinking. Deadly controlled.
Marcia’s pulse stuttered, plummeting with the realization of his sincerity.
Just days ago, she had been walking the cool sand of Barceloneta Beach with her boyfriend—sunset bleeding pink and orange across the sky—when he had approached them out of nowhere. Tall, impossibly elegant in a way that screamed old American money, and radiating complete, absolute confidence. He introduced himself politely as Dorian Vale, smiled warmly at Ethan, and then, pulling Marcia aside with unsettling intimacy, he said he had a "solution" to her problem after he had heard she was getting engaged to Luciano.
He had said:
I can make Luciano Solis De La Vega disappear. Permanently. You can keep your man and your freedom.
Marcia remembered the profound, dizzying relief that had surged through her chest then—like someone had handed her a definitive lifeline in the storm of her parents demands.
But now that lifeline tasted like pure poison, and the man holding it looked like the devil.
She stared at him, trying to reconcile the two versions of the same man: the elegant savior and the cold strategist.
"I don’t understand," she whispered, leaning forward slightly, seeking clarity in the darkness. "You approached me. You said you could get rid of Luciano so I wouldn’t have to marry him. Now you’re saying I should marry him first?"
Dorian smiled—slow, indulgent, almost pitying, as if she were a remarkably slow student. Then he leaned closer, resting his elbows on the table, as though sharing a secret between old, trusted friends.
"Oh, I absolutely can make him disappear," he said lightly, his tone suggesting the task was as simple as making a reservation. "But not yet. First, you follow your mother’s script: you break up with your little boyfriend. Then, you dutifully get engaged to Luciano, and then you marry him."
He paused, his eyes gleaming with unsettling anticipation.
"And then," he continued, tapping his temple dramatically, "by some unforeseen, tragic circumstances—which is me, by the way—he dies. Unexpectedly. Heart-wrenching for the society pages, of course."
Marcia’s stomach lurched, threatening to revolt against the expensive meal she’d never touched.
"And as his perfectly grieving widow," Dorian continued, his voice sliding into a chilling purr, "you inherit everything. Imagine it—his vast assets, his ungodly influence, his power. All handed to you. You secure the entire empire for the Davis name. And then... you get to make Mommy and Daddy deliriously happy, because that’s all they truly want, isn’t it? Money. Power. Prestige."
He flicked his wrist casually, like flipping pages of a magazine, his steel-grey eyes gleaming with dark delight.
"And then—ta-da— you are independently wealthy, a pillar of society, and finally free to marry your little coffee-shop boyfriend. You keep him, you keep the power. Win-win." He winked, completely undermining the gravity of his proposal. "Don’t you think so, little Mar-Mar?"
Her blood ran ice-cold.
The nickname—Mar-Mar—made her skin crawl, sounding cloying and proprietary, like hands she didn’t want touching her.
Marcia’s lips parted, unable to form a coherent thought. Horror slithered through her ribs like cold water, freezing her organs.
"So your solution... is murder?" she managed, her voice tiny and constricted. "You want me to help you kill Luciano. But why?"
Dorian blinked, as if the question genuinely offended him. Or, worse, bored him with its predictability.
"Why?" he echoed, lifting his chin slightly. "Well, yes, of course. Luciano Solis De La Vega has to die. It’s an inconvenience that needs resolving."
His tone was so casual it felt utterly obscene.
He lifted his glass of water, swirling it idly, watching the condensation bead and run down the crystal.
"He swindled me, Marcia," he stated, letting the bitterness finally bleed into his voice. "Took my hundred million dollars and gave me a shipping container full of... tissue paper." He scoffed softly, the sound full of venom and outrage. "Tissue paper, Mar-Mar. Can you imagine the insult? He believes himself untouchable."
But beneath that scoff—there was something else. Something jagged. Something dark, not merely about money. Something older.
Something personal.
Because Dorian Vale was lying. The money was a good cover, but it wasn’t the core motive.
Behind his smooth, elegant expression, a storm flickered briefly in his eyes—flashes of a memory slicing through him. His hand tightened around the glass, tendons standing out sharply beneath his skin, briefly losing his control.
The image hit him like a hammer:
His father.
Lying lifeless on the cold floor of their ancestral home, blood spreading like a shadow beneath him.
A knife buried deep in his heart.
And young Luciano—a teenager—holding the same knife, one arm wrapped around Dorian’s mother’s throat, pinning her to the wall as she begged, shaking, sobbing, a pool of terror and submission at his feet.
The memory was a garrote, strangling him.
He blinked hard. Forced it down. Forced himself back into the present moment, back to the light, back to the plan.
Smooth mask. Calm voice. Empty smile.
Marcia didn’t notice the violent storm beneath the surface. She only saw the sickening sweetness he smeared over the clear danger.
"So yes," he said pleasantly, recovering instantly. "Luciano must die for his insolence. And you, little Mar-Mar, are my ticket to getting close to him. My Trojan horse, if you will."
Marcia’s chair scraped softly against the terrace tile as she pushed back, shaking from head to toe.
"I can’t," she whispered, truly horrified. "Dorian, I—I can’t help you. I can’t help kill someone. I’m not built for this."
Dorian set down his glass with a soft, delicate clink. He didn’t argue.
He smiled.
Not cruelly. Not coldly. Just... patiently. Like an adult explaining basic physics to a toddler.
"Of course you can’t," he chirped, sounding genuinely understanding. "You have the perfect right to refuse. No hard feelings. I’ll simply find another route. It will just take a little longer."
A breath of genuine, foolish relief escaped her—too early.
But then—
He leaned forward again, his voice dropping to something quiet and vicious, pulling her back into his absolute control.
"And, just for the record... I will tell your parents that you are very much still dating that... what do they call him?" He tapped his temple as if searching for the name. "Oh yes—’That Nobody.’ And I’ll enjoy watching them disown you. They’ll freeze your cards. Cut you off from everything. Toss you aside like you never mattered."
Marcia’s breath shattered. This was the threat that truly worked.
"And oh," he said almost thoughtfully, watching her face crumble. "I’ll kill your boyfriend. Slowly. Right in front of you."
Her heart stopped, the reality of the violence crashing over her.
Dorian watched her with mild, detached curiosity, as if studying a fascinating chemical reaction.
"Don’t look at me like that, Marcia," he said softly, tilting his head. "You know my face. You know my voice. You know my eye color. You know my plan. I can’t risk you running your pretty little mouth to Luciano. You are a loose end. And I always tie up my loose ends."
He leaned back, stretching his arms with lazy satisfaction, enjoying her terror.
"So, little Mar-Mar... do we have a deal? You get the life you want, eventually. All you have to do is marry him first."
Tears blurred her vision, hot and agonizing. Her lungs burned. Her hands shook uncontrollably beneath the table.
She thought of her boyfriend—his kindness, his laugh, the way he held her as if she was something precious in a world that only used her. She thought of her parents—the cold, inevitable blade of their expectations. The engagement looming over her like a noose.
She thought of Luciano—someone she’d never met. Someone who know she existed, yet whom she was about to help kill.
Her voice broke into a terrified whimper.
"...yes."
Dorian’s eyes glowed with satisfaction, a brief flare of triumph. "Excellent." He clapped his hands once—soft and gleeful. "Pleasure doing business with you, Marcia. You’ve made a very smart choice."
He reached for his napkin, dabbed his mouth delicately, then rose to his feet with the ease of someone who had merely finished a pleasant lunch.
"Oh," he added lightly, adjusting his cufflink. "And we’ll tell people I’m your new assistant. That should explain my presence in your life quite nicely." He winked. "See you soon, Mar-Mar."
He walked away.
Calm. Unhurried.
Like he hadn’t just torn her world apart and reshaped it in his own cold, dangerous hands.
Marcia sat frozen, breath trembling, tears burning her eyes so fiercely she felt blinded
The chair beside her felt too empty. The air too thin. Her heart too fragile.
Her phone vibrated sharply on the table.
"Oh God..."
Ethan♡ calling...
She stared at his name. The screen blurred through her tears.
She pressed accept, knowing she was about to deliver the first cut.
Her throat tightened painfully, a desperate, silent sob trapped inside.
She lifted the phone with shaking fingers.
"B-baby?" his voice rushed through the speaker, worried, frantic. "What’s taking so long? You said you were just grabbing something—I’m worried."
And without meaning to, without being able to stop it, Marcia broke.
The tears fell hard, uncontrollable, like a dam bursting from the pressure.
She pressed her hand over her mouth, sobbing into the phone, crying into the voice of the only person who had ever truly loved her—
And the only person she might now destroy to save.
